I would do lots and lots of reading regarding best practices in lawn care (maybe through your local University's ag/LawnGarden extension) or Purdue, U of Minnesota, and lots of others have good ones.

Otherwise look at Dschall's recent response in the "brown for a well cared for lawn" topic - which is a good summary. water deep, mow high 3-4", don't cut off more than 1/3 the height, fertilize 4-5times a year(most in fall).

Often weedy lawns are mowed shorter to remove weeds/flowers... this makes the problem worse. grab a 2gallon pump sprayer and a concentrate mix of weed b gone.... you will take care of 90% of the weeds in a week or two.

Get a soil test from Logan Labs to make sure you soil isn't deficient in key nutrients or imbalanced...! its priceless! Especially if you have desolation areas!

Don't hire anyone. We can help you with the added bonus that we aren't trying to sell you a monthly regimen of products and services. Aerate and dethatch would cost you $300 minimum, and we're going to recommend neither one of those. They don't do what everyone thinks they do. Other cheap stuff will do that for you, but not those techniques.

How have you been watering? How often and for how long? Watering is usually at the root (so to speak) of lawn issues.

The Logan Labs soil test is by far the best available. That's not so much that the $25.00 test is excellent, but that if you post the results here on this forum, morpheuspa will read it for you and give you $250.00 worth of free advice. He'll tell you what you need to apply, why, when, how much, and where to buy it. Look for a topic or two with Logan Labs in the title and see how that works. If you post test results from your local extension service, you'll get about zero dollars worth of help because those tests are unreliable and don't test what you need to have tested.

If it comes down to a renovation, fall is the best time of year to do that, so let's take the rest of summer to learn the best practices of lawn care and practice them yourself. Even a nicely kept patch of weeds looks pretty good. In fact I have a nicely kept patch of weeds to demonstrate...

There's no turf grass in that picture - well, up against the house and out about 4 feet there's some St Augustine. But the rest is 95% horse herb mixed with 5% prairie grasses. Clearly it's a blank slate, but by fall it should have the basics of a fenced landscape in it.

Anyway, here's something I put together a few years ago...

Basics of Lawn Care

After reading numerous books and magazines on lawn care, caring for lawns at seven houses in my life, and reading numerous forums where real people write in to discuss their successes and failures, I have decided to side with the real people and dispense with the book and magazine authors. I don't know what star their planet rotates around but it's not mine. With that in mind, here is the collected wisdom of the Internet savvy homeowners and lawn care professionals summarized in a few words. If you follow the advice here you will have conquered at least 50% of all lawn problems. Once you have these three elements mastered, then you can worry about weeds (if you have any), dog spots, and striping your lawn. But if you are not doing these three things, they will be the first three things suggested for you to correct.


1. Watering
Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an inch in every zone, all at once. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. Do not spread this out and water for 10 minutes every day. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. If that does not work, then you might have to water more than once per week during the summer's hottest period. Deep watering grows deep, drought resistant roots. Infrequent watering allows the top layer of soil to dry completely which kills off many shallow rooted weeds.

You will have to learn to judge when to water your own lawn. If you live in El Paso your watering will be different than if you live in Vermont. Adjust your watering to your type of grass, temperature, humidity, wind, and soil type. It is worth noting that this technique is used successfully by professionals in Phoenix, so...just sayin.' The other factors make a difference. If you normally water 1 inch per week and you get 1/2 inch of rain, then adjust and water only 1/2 inch that week.

2. Mowing
Every week mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. However, bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses will become the most dense when they are mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. In fact there are special mowers that can mow these grasses down to 1/16 inch. Dense grass shades out weeds, keeps the soil cooler, and uses less water than thin grass. Tall grass can feed the deep roots you developed in #1 above. Tall grass does not grow faster than short grass nor does it look shaggy sooner. Once all your grass is at the same height, tall grass just looks plush.

3. Fertilizing
Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 5 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above. Follow the directions on the bag and do not overdo it. Too much organic is better than too little*.

At this point you do not have to worry about weed and feed products - remember at this point you are just trying to grow grass, not perfect it. Besides once you are doing these three things correctly, your weed problems should go away without herbicide.

* This used to read, "Too little is better than too much." Recent test results show that you cannot get too much organic fertilizer unless you bury the grass in it.